The Wizard of Oz from a Narnian POV
by jasonc65
Summary: A retelling of The Wizard of Oz from the Narnian point of view. Since there are no good witches in Narnia, Oz might be frightening to Narnians. Will Dorothy escape? Can Glinda be trusted? The story will be faithful to the book.
1. Prologue

A retelling of The Wizard of Oz from the Narnian point of view. Imagine what the Narnians must think of the witches of Oz. Since there are no good witches in Narnia, unless Lewis's history is very biased, the innocent Oz stories meant to please a child must be frightening to Narnians. You could probably never convince them that Glinda is a good witch, especially since she shares so many characteristics with Jadis; that is, she dresses in white, her palace faces the North, she has long life and lasting beauty, etc. And her powers must also be vast. Of course, she rides a stork chariot, not a sledge; she uses girl soldiers as her police, not wolves; she believes that transformations are unethical, she does not control the weather, and she didn't prevent Santa Clause from appearing at Ozma's birthday party; but Narnians have known at least two evil witches, and their tactics were certainly not the same. I have therefore decided that I will indeed let some Narnians hear the story and get a good fright. For Marshwiggles, such a story might in fact come right up their alley, lol. 

**Disclaimer: I don't own Puddleglum, and I don't own the Wizard of Oz, but I am just retelling it to Puddleglum for its humorous effect.  
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Once I was in Narnia, having eel pie with Puddleglum, shortly after the time of "The Silver Chair". And he wanted to hear a story. We were talking about so many other things that were interesting, what his world was like and what my world was like. I had for instance explained to Puddleglum how my country was at a war and that there was a faction that did not like the war. 

"That is sad", Puddleglum had remarked. "I am a tenderhearted person, and I don't like there being wars and people getting killed".

"But it is a just war", I explained."There is another country that is trying to develop dangerous weapons. There are tyrants who torture people and terrorists who walk into buildings with explosives strapped to their backs - powders that are bewitched to explode when you press a button or something. There are nutters who for the sake of Tash are willing to pilot airships into buildings, killing themselves and thousands of other people in the process. And as long as these people are in power, the world is becoming an increasingly sad and dangerous place to live in".

"That's too bad. As much as I hate war, I do know that it is sometimes necessary. Anyway, won't you please tell me a story".

"Alright, I will tell you a story, but I shouldn't think you'll like it. It's got witches who pretend to befriend people, and you never know what their real intentions are until the end".

"I don't mind if you tell me a frightening story. It might do me some good. In fact, we marshwiggles love to sit around campfires and tell each other horror stories, when times are going good. It keeps life in perspective for us".

"Very well".


	2. The Story

Here's the story you were waiting for. For me, it was light reading, but for you, it might be better classified as a horror story. After all, it depicts terrible wizards, ferocious beasts, and frightening witches. Let's just say that the main character, Dorothy, has a scary adventure in a foreign country. So the story is my take on "The Wizard of Oz" by L Frank Baum.

Once there was a girl named Dorothy who lived with her Aunt and Uncle on a farm in Kansas. Kansas is a state in the United States of America. It has a very barren landscape very much like the part of Narnia in which you live in that there are very few trees. But there is a lot of grass, and its soil is very fertile. It is in the central part of the country. To the east are forests and to the west lie arid deserts. 100-foot wide highways now cross the whole country, conducting horseless carriages at 70 miles an hour. But it wans't that way back then. Many people think that Kansas is a very boring part of the country.

But for Dorothy, things are about to get interesting. She's about to get mixed up with magic and witches. It all happens when the tornado hits Kansas. All her family makes it to the storm shelter in time, but poor Dorothy has to get her dog Toto. She has to get him through the house, down the trap-door, and into the basement before the tornado touches down and destroys the house, but she is too late. While she is in the house, the tornado touches down and picks up the house and sends it to another world. Don't ask me how a tornado can be a door to another world, for I couldn't explain it any better than the thing with the wardrobe. I think it might have something to do with lightning. Tornados are often spawned by thunderstorms, and the funnel clouds that conduct the damaging winds may be able to conduct lightning in a spiral pattern. At the high voltages and currents at which lightning conducts, the electromagnetic effects would be enormous. It could be sufficient to create a time warp which could open a door to another dimension. It would carry the wind of the tornado and some of the storm energy into the other world, so that people in the other world would also experience a tornado.

In any event, when the house finally lands, Dorothy is unharmed, because the storm drops it as gently as it picks it up. But when she opens that door, she finds she is not in Kansas anymore. The people in the land are called Munchkins. They are comparable to dwarves in size, but look more human in shape. The author says the adults in that population have the same height as children Dorothy's age. Upon her exit from the house, Dorothy is greeted by three of these Munchkins and an old woman who is dressed differently than the the rest of the group. She explains to Dorothy that the Munchkins are thankful to her, for her house has landed on the wicked witch who used to oppress them. The Munchkins seem to think that Dorothy must herself be a witch, because it must take powerful magic to kill a powerful witch. So the old lady asks Dorothy if the Munchkins can trust her. No doubt Dorothy is confused, as I'm sure you'd be if you were in her shoes. She knows she is not a witch, and she is also too tender-hearted even to kill a witch. She pleads innocent, claiming that it was all an accident. It seems odd that a witch wouldn't have the presence of mind to know that a house was about to be dropped on her. But that is exactly what happens.

But another surprise awaits Dorothy as she is about to find out that the old lady who has thanked her is herself a witch. She claims to have come from the North. Now, that may sound scary, but Dorothy doesn't know much about witches. She does know that magic is an evil, forbidden practice in her world, and she readily accepts the old lady's explanation that Oz is not exactly a civilized country in which all forbidden practices are outlawed. So in Oz, magic exists, and there are wizards and witches who practice it. The lady explains that there is another witch in the southern part of the kingdom and still another witch in the western wilds who is just as evil and oppressive as the witch Dorothy just killed. Since wizards have been mentioned, Dorothy is curious as to who the wizards are. So the old lady explains that Oz himself is a great and terrible wizard whom no one dares approach unless he means business. He lives at the very center of Oz at which lies the brilliant Emerald City. Next, Dorothy explains her longing for her home in Kansas. Now, unlike people who come to Narnia from my world, Dorothy doesn't easily forget where she came from. She is only on the first day of her adventure, and she is already homesick. So the old lady suggests that Dorothy appear to the Wizard of Oz and tell him that she needs to get back to her world. She explains that the land of Oz is surrounded by a desert that no one can cross. This desert has the property that any living thing that touches its sands turns to dust. So Dorothy dare not look for help outside the confines of the Oasis.

Now, Oz has a people who are in many ways very American, just as Narnians are very much like the British. Like America, Oz seems to be divided into provinces that assert their own rights and customs. America has 50 provinces. Oz has only 4. These are laid out very neatly on the map. The oasis is rectangular, and the borders of the provinces are along the diagonals. The city in the middle seems to be a province all of its own, very much like the capital of my own country. Just as each state in the United States has a state bird, a state flower, a state tree, etc., each state in Oz seems to have a state color. For instance, the state flower of Kansas, Dorothy's state, is the sunflower. The state color of the province of the Munchkins is the color blue. The expression, "to paint the town red", could have very well come from Oz, for Oz indeed has a province that favors that color. Interestingly, mundane objects like lamp posts and road signs seem to have styles that vary from state to state in the United States. There is a similar cultural phenomenon in Oz. Each of the four peoples likes to paint their buildings in their state colors. Where Dorothy's house lands is in the province of the Munchkins which lies in the eastern corner of Oz. At the moment of Dorothy's arrival, each province is ruled by a witch, but Dorothy's house kills the witch that rules in the east. Before she sets off for the Emerald City, Dorothy notices that the dead witch's feet are sticking out from under the house. Since she is an old hag, her legs disintegrate into gases, leaving only her shoes behind. Her shoes are made of silver and contain a powerful magic which Dorothy doesn't know how to use. The witch from the North suggests that Dorothy take the shoes with her. This doesn't sound like a wise suggestion, since it could get Dorothy mixed up with dark magic. But Dorothy doesn't know much about the dangers of magic, and her friends in Oz are equally undiscerning. So Dorothy simply does what is her only hope and sets off to see the Wizard.

In order to reach the Emerald City, she has to take the yellow brick road, which starts near the point where her house landed. On the journey she encounters many dangers. There are ferocious beasts who dwell in the woods. There are for instance Lions, but they aren't anything like Aslan. They may never have heard of the Great Lion. By what name Aslan is known in Oz I couldn't say, because the Oz books are not very spiritual, and the author himself doesn't acknowledge Aslan by the name by which he is known in my world. The author would be more comfortable with the notion that Aslan is Tash or some blasphemous nonsense like that. Another author who has done a retake on Oz suggests that Aslan is known in Oz as the Unnamed God. But like Baum, he also isn't writing from a spiritual perspective. Still, I don't believe that it is possible for any author to write a good story without getting some glimpse of another world. Now, most of the beasts acknowledge the Lions as the ruling class among the beasts of the forest. But Lions are not the most ferocious beasts of the forest. Fiercer and meaner are the Kalidahs. Don't ask me how to pronounce it. The English language, which is also the Narnian language and the Ozzish language, is a messed up language in terms of its spelling and pronunciation rules. It could be pronounced either "Kuhleeduh" or "Kuhleyeduh". The name looks like it is derived from another language that is now extinct in Oz. Anyway, these beasts seem to be a strange mish-mash of lion, tiger, and bear. Even the lions and tigers and bears themselves dread them. Fortunately, they are separated by the rest of the forrest by deep chasm. It is through this part of the forrest that the Yellow Brick Road takes Dorothy and her friends.

Oh, I forgot to mention Dorothy's friends. First of all, before she even reaches the forrest, she notices that scarecrows can talk. She spots one on a stake in the corner of a cornfield. She feels sorry for him and rescues him. The crows have told the Scarecrow that he had no chance of scaring them because he has no brains. The Scarecrow wants brains. Not far into the forrest, she meets a man made of tin who has been immobilized by rust. It turns out he was once a woodsman who was madly in love with a maiden who had a jealous sister. The sister convinced the wicked witch to play evil pranks on the woodsman. She had enchanted his ax so that he frequently got into accidents where his body was chopped into pieces, and they gradually had to be replaced with parts made of tin. The last replacement was his chest. When that was complete, he says he lost all feeling of romance for his beloved. He attributes this loss of feeling to a lack of heart, which the tinsmith forgot to replace. Now, how a man can be chopped into pieces and still live, I can't imagine. It must be some sort of enchantment. There are people in my world with artificial hearts and kidneys, but not entire artificial bodies. Baum thinks that the land of Oz has been enchanted so that no one dies, but I don't believe him. The reason Dorothy encountered him in his rusted condition is because when he was caught in a rainstorm one night, the reaction of water and tin was instantaneous. I can't imagine how that is the case, since rusting is usually a very slow process, in which water acts as a weak catalyst, by which metals are converted back to their ores by taking up the part of the air which we breath. What is even more remarkable is that the application of lubricating oil from an oilcan on a nearby stump proved equally instantaneous in its liberating effect. The third and last friend Dorothy meets is one of the Lions. This Lion is actually not a very brave Lion. He admits that he scares easily. I suppose he'd be ashamed to be in Aslan's company. He tries to prove his ferocity by biting Dorothy's dog and intimidating her friends, but he breaks down emotionally when Dorothy merely slaps him in the face. The Lion apologizes, and Dorothy readily forgives him. So that is how Dorothy meets her friends. They all want something that they think only the famous Wizard of Oz can give them, whether it be brains, a heart, courage, or the way home. So they all agree to follow Dorothy down the Yellow Brick Road to the Emerald City to see a great and terrible Wizard.

In order to get through the Country of the Kalidahs, they have to have the Tin Man chop a tree in order to bridge the chasm. They narrowly escape an attack by the Kalidahs by cutting down the bridge behind them. Their next danger is a great river that cuts accross the road. The road does not cross the river by means of a bridge. Their plan to build a raft is brilliant, but they underestimate the depth of the water and the power of the current. Their stakes cannot reach the riverbed, the current carries them miles downstream, and they end up with the scarecrow stuck on a stake in the middle of the river. The Lion acts very bravely by swimming the rest of them across the river, despite the fact that cats hate water, while they are holding onto his tail (ouch!). They are able to persuade a friendly stork that the scarecrow is light enough to carry. They must now follow the river bank on the western side upstream in order to return to the Yellow Brick Road, but along the way, they encounter a field of poppies. Their scent is so strong that it puts Dorothy, Toto, and the Lion to sleep. They end up being rescued by field Mice whose queen is grateful for the Tin Man's rescuing her from a wildcat by the blade of his ax. It's hard to explain how Mice can pull a heavy Lion across a field, but it helps to point out that the Tin Man is able to build a cart and a suitable harness for the Mice. (This is not the only story I have read in which a Lion is helped by Mice. Sometimes I wonder if C S Lewis got ideas from Baum). The Mouse Queen happens to be a witch in her own right, and she gives Dorothy's friends a magic whistle which they can use to call her any time they need her help.

From then on, it is smooth sailing until Dorothy and her friends reach the Wizard. For the rest of the journey is through farmland and suburbs, and as usual, Dorothy is aided by the hospitality of the Oz people. When Dorothy reaches the gates of the city itself, she and her friends have to put on green glasses, for the Wizard has declared that the brilliant lights of the city are more than the naked eye can bear. The royal guards are surprised that Dorothy and her friends want to see the Wizard because the Wizard has a reputation of being unapproachable, always taking the forms of hideous beasts and enchanting women, and always insinuating that his visitors have no good reason to see him at all. The Wizard indeed appears in a unique form to each in Dorothy's company, and declares that favors are not freely given but earned. He refuses to grant their wishes unless they accomplish the difficult task of killing the Wicked Witch of the West. So Dorothy and her friends set off towards the Wicked Witch, not expecting to succeed. It is hard to explain why they'd take on such an impossible task. Perhaps they believed they have been lucky before and are hoping they'll be lucky again. Baum was apparently a believer in luck, and writes characters who believe very much like himself. Perhaps Dorothy's friends feared slavery by the witch less than they feared reprisals by the Wizard for disobedience. In any event, the Witch proves less powerful than they feared. She has no recourse to defend herself but to send ferocious wolves, stinging bees, and pecking crows at them. The Tin Man's ax fells the wolves, the bees' stingers have not effect on tin, and the scarecrow is very good at strangling crows, even if he can't scare them. The Witch's last resort is the Winged Monkeys. These creatures are extremely powerful and mischievous. Dorothy's friends are finally overcome, the creatures of straw and tin are spoiled, and the rest of the lot are carried off to the Witch's castle. As a further demonstration of how powerless the Witch really is, she can only command the Winged Monkey's three times, for that is the conditions of use of the golden cap by which she commands them. The cap has been bewitched by an enchantress so that each user gets to command the Monkeys three times. This happens to be the third time, the other two times having been used to drive the Wizard away and to enslave the Winkies, which are the people who occupy the western province of Oz. As the Monkeys depart, they gloat over the Witch's powerlessness as they return to their freedom.

In fact, the Witch really has no more magic than the old hag that was slain by Caspian when she tried to call up the White Witch. In order to rule the Winkies, she relies on intimidation. Perhaps they don't know that she can only command the Monkeys three times. Her intimidation tactics do not succeed in persuading the Lion to obey her wishes. She covets Dorothy's silver shoes, knowing their powers. And so it happens that in a fit of anger, after the Witch has succeeded in stealing one of the shoes, while Dorothy is scrubbing her floors, Dorothy kills her by throwing a bucket of water at her. Water has an affect on Ozian Witches (at least those of the old haggish variety) that they dissolve in it as if they were sugar. Like the Munchkins in the east, the Winkies are greatful for the demise of their oppressor. They help Dorothy restore her friends and declare that the Tin Man should be their next ruler when he returns from his journey to the Emerald City. The journey is not through dangerous forests but through barren, uncultivated glens, but they lose their way because there is no road. They call on the Field Mice for help, but the Mouse Queen notices that Dorothy is carrying the golden cap and tells Dorothy about the incantation that is written inside the cap. Thus Dorothy learns how to command the Winged Monkeys. As the Monkeys are carrying Dorothy to the Emerald City, they tell their sad story of how they angered a beautiful enchantress by playing a prank on her lover. On her wedding night as a gift, she had given her groom the golden cap which she had enchanted for the purpose of punishing the Monkeys. Somehow, the cap found its way into the hands of the Wicked Witch.

When Dorothy and her friends return to the Wizard, the Wizard does not keep his word, and the Lion roars in his anger, startling the dog, who then upsets a curtain, revealing the true from of the Wizard. It turns out that the Wizard is really just an ordinary man from Dorothy's world who has been pretending all along. He was from the state in the United States known as Nebraska, which borders Kansas on the north. He was a clown who performed tricks at a circus. One day, a stunt in a balloon had gone wrong, and the baloon was blown away into a strange land that turned out to be this very land of Oz. On the balloon was written the man's initials which happened to be O.Z. Also, his arrival in Oz seemed to coincide with the demise of their previous ruler at the hands of the witches. For some reason, the Ozites disregarded the authority of their previous ruler, despite the fact that his daughter was presumed to be still alive and under an enchantment, and believing the man to be a great and powerful magician, and being a very fearful and superstitious people, offered him the throne as their next ruler. The man feared the witches, knowing that they were really powerful and he himself was powerless. So he contrived to deceive all of Oz by performing the same tricks he had been used to performing at circuses. He had known for instance that green glasses would make everything appear greenish. He had somehow managed to fool even the witches into fearing him. Now that the two most oppressive and obviously wicked witches were deposed, he still feared that the two more benevolently-inclined witches that remained would be very unforgiving of him if he was found out. So he proposed to get up in his baloon again and take Dorothy with him and hope to be blown back into his own world. He would appoint the Scarecrow his successor. I don't know how you can just count on time warps showing up whenever you take to the skies, but the author later states that the Wizard somehow made it. In order to pacify Dorothy's friends, the Wizard offers them placebos, knowing that they will believe anything to believe they have finally acquired the things they desire. He convinces them in part that they already possessed the qualities they desire, as their actions have frequently demonstrated. After all, the Lion had acted bravely, the Tin Man cared for Dorothy, and the scarecrow came up with brilliant plans to get his friends out of difficulties. Also, one must consider that since one can't explain how various inanimate objects can talk in Oz, one can't expect to explain how various foreign substances might work once injected into such creatures. The needles and pins that the Wizard used to replace the straw in the scarecrow's head may very well have made excellent neurons under the magical conditions of the scarecrow's enchanted, stuffed body. The satin heart that was placed in the Tin Man's chest may have been exactly what the tinsmith should have used to begin with. I can't explain the Lion's courage. Perhaps the previous ruler of Oz did keep a bottle of courage in his cupboard, and Oz was fortunate to discover it. Anyway, it is said that the Lion always acted very unpredictably, sometimes with admirable heroism, and sometimes with great intrepidation. Nothing changed after the Lion had drunk his potion.

But unfortunately for Dorothy, the Wizard was just about to take off when Toto sprang from her arms to chase a cat. I sure don't know why some people take cats to sporting events with them. I once saw a baseball game on TV that was interrupted because a cat jumped down from the stands and ran across the outfield. By the time Dorothy could retrieve the dog, the balloon had taken off, leaving her behind, and the Wizard was entirely powerless to stop it. The scarecrow came up with the idea of calling the Winged Monkeys, but the Winged Monkeys complained that they couldn't leave Oz and therefore couldn't take Dorothy to Kansas. Now that Dorothy had seen or not exactly seen three witches and the Wizard, it was suggested that Dorothy consult the one witch she had not yet seen, the one who ruled the southern quarter of Oz. At this point, her name is revealed as Glinda, while the other witches remain unnamed. She was reputed to be the most powerful of all the magicians in Oz except for Oz himself. It was also said that she was very beautiful and that she was a long-liver. Her own people that she ruled said that she was kind. I don't know if trusting her was really a good idea. People will say almost anything to defend their beloved ruler who has benefitted them politically or economically, or if, as in the case of the gnomes of Underland, she has bewitched them. Those gnomes used to say that their ruler was "a nosegay of all virtue". And young-looking, beautiful, long-living witches are notorious for being deceptive and selfish. Baum wrote about a similar witch in his book "Zixi of Ix". He portrayed her as an unhappy creature who was benevolently-disposed but unhappy because although she looked beautiful to everyone else, whenever she looked in a mirror, a hag stared back at her. In order to be able to see her beauty, she did some very selfish and stupid things, and the author leaves her state somewhat unresolved. Indeed, how Baum, the same author who said that he wanted morality and heartaches left out of his stories, could write a Greek tragedy, is beyond me. But that is a different story.

In order to find Glinda, Dorothy must journey south from the Emerald City, as far as the desert. The road, like the yellow brick road that leads east from the city, passses through dangerous forests, in which even some of the trees aren't friendly. Dorothy's friends will not forsake her to rule their kingdoms until they know Dorothy is safely returned to her home. Why the trees in the forest oppose their journey is hard to explain. Perhaps the trees have unfriendly spirits. Perhaps the dryads have gone wild, just as Talking Beasts have been known to do in Narnia. But that obstacle is easily overcome, as the trees can feel pain. All they have to do is hack at their branches with the Tin Man's ax. It is only the trees at the edge of the forest that are hostile. Perhaps the other trees are afraid of whomping each other with their branches.

But in the middle of the forrest is a queer spot in Oz where all the people are made of china. The brittle landscape sprawls over diminutive farmlands, palaces and cities, and in human measurements probably only extends three miles. I don't know why Dorothy couldn't have gone around the china country instread of through it. Odd places in Oz can't be too big, or Oz would be dominated by them and they coudn't be overlooked or unknown by Oz's inhabitants. But I guess Dorothy and her friends feared to leave the road lest they lose their way and not recognize it when they encounter the road where it leaves on the southern side. After all, it is not paved with yellow brick and it does not stand out from other roads. It is probably just a dirt road like any other. But climbing a china wall presents dangers of its own. The north wall is so high that the Tin Man must build a ladder to climb it, and they must then use the scarecrow as a mattress in order to jump down the other side. But what if the southern wall is the same height? If there are any forests in the China Country, they sure aren't made of ordinary wood. In the end they'd have no other recourse but to smash their way out, and that would just be horrible from the China People's point of view. Of course we forgot the Winged Monkeys. It is remarkable that Dorothy doesn't remember them until she encounters the Hammerheads. Before they reach the south wall, they freighten some of the people, who are injured during their panic. Dorothy manages to insult the princess of the people by offering to put her on her mantle shelf when she gets to Kansas. Of course, this would make the china princess very unhappy, because once outside the China Country, the magic is such that the princess would lose her mobility. The south wall turns out to be low enough that the lion can jump over it and the rest of the lot can scramble over it by using the lion's back. Baum mentions that just as the lion jumps, his tail smashes the steeple of a china church, and this is the only mention of a church in Oz! No one knows what gods the Ozites must have worshiped.

In the southern part of the forest, the beasts have called a council in a clearing and are holding a tournament to determine the bravest beast for an urgent task: the slaying of a giant spider who is terrorizing the forest. The Lion, emboldened by his belief that he has courage, offers to slay the spider. The Lion succeeds in his task and as a reward is crowned the King of Beasts. Next, Dorothy encounters steep mountains on which dwell unfriendly creatures called Hammer-Heads. They are small and stout, but they have the power to shoot their heards like cannon-balls. Dorothy's friends are not able to overcome them, and they will not let them pass. But the Winged Monkeys are able to fly beyond their reach and put them down in easy reach of Glinda's palace. Her gates face North, and Dorothy does not have to go around it.

Glinda seems to be some sort of feminist, just the sort of person that C S Lewis was leary of. She has chosen women as her guards and police. When Dorothy asks her how to get back to Kansas, Glinda seems to act just as you would expect from a witch, requiring a price for her favors. The thing she apparently covets is the golden cap. She will later rationalize that she intends to use the Winged Monkeys to return each of Dorothy's friends to their newly acquired kingdoms so that they won't have to make the dangerous journeys by foot. She then says that she will free the Monkeys by giving the cap to the Monkey King. Of course, Dorothy does not care to cling on to magical items and she knows that the golden cap is useless to her as she has wasted its charm. Glinda then reveals the magical properties of the silver shoes. She explains that all Dorothy has to do is click her heels together three times and wish herself at her Aunt Em's. In other words, three times' the charm. What she conveniently does not explain to Dorothy is that magical items such as the silver shoes cannot exist in her own nonmagical world, and that therefore the shoes will fall off her feet in mid-flight. So it appears that she covets the shoes and hopes to find them when they land in the desert. Fortunately, the author never says in his later books that she succeeds. She later plays an important role in restoring the rightful ruler to the throne of Oz

As the story ends, Dorothy lands in her own backyard in her bare feet and embraces her Aunt, explaining that she was in Oz, and that it doesn't matter if she believes her story or not, because she's so glad to be home.


End file.
